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District administrator tapped for statewide job

Karen Twain will lead initiative to bring full-day kindergarten to schools by 2015.

Karen Twain, a Tigard-Tualatin School District administrator and former principal, will step down at the end of this month in order to lead the states implementation of full-day kindergarten.

Twain currently serves as the director of alternative programs for the school district, but announced on Tuesday that she would be leaving to lead Governor John Kitzhabers reading initiative  which calls for all students in the state to be able to read by the third grade  as well as work to implement free full-day kindergarten statewide, which is set to take effect in 2015.

Twain has been in Tigard-Tualatin for 28 years and has served in several capacities. She worekd as principal of Durham Elementary School, vice principal at Tualatin High School, a school councilor at Charles F. Tigard Elementary, Fowler Middle and Tigard High schools.

Twain served as principal of Metzger Elementary School between 2003 and 2010. During Twains tenure she implemented a free full-day kindergarten program at the school for all students and has chaired the state's legislative committee that recommended the full-day kindergarten law, which was passed by the legislature in 2011.

In a statement released by the district on Tuesday, Twain said the proudest moment was in her first job in the district back in the 1980s when she was hired as a learning specialist to implement the districts first special education inclusion program at then-Fowler Junior High, now Fowler Middle School.